Sunday, September 30, 2012

Band Hero

So, other than Guitar Hero 6: Warriors of Rock, Band Hero was the last game I really had to do in the entire series. Being that I don't have access to a copy of WoR or a console to play it on, it'll probably stay that way.

Anywho, what is there to Band Hero to set it apart from the rest of the series?

It's balls easy, that's what.

In fact, it's earned the distinction of being the game I will recommend to entry-level GH players.

Unlike the other GH games, it doesn't have a "hardest song" or a set of "hardest songs". Most of the songs are really easy, and the remaining ones are moderate difficulty with the occasional hard spot. This shows quite plainly in my sightread results, where I almost full game 5-starred both guitar and bass. On guitar it was a matter of tapping a pattern of slider notes that I hadn't been prepared for on sightread, and on bass it was a matter of using star power in the right spot because the song only had 42 fucking notes.

The soundtrack is what the game lives off of, and this time around they seem to have put in a handful of good songs and then filled in the rest of the 65 song set list with completely meh songs. The worst of the bunch being Bring Me To Life by Evanescence. I actually unplugged my speakers when I sightread that song. On both Guitar and Bass. Just to give some contrast, there are three Taylor Swift songs and one Hilary Duff song in the game and I didn't unplug my speakers for them. Just sayin'.

I'll give two overall statements:

If you're new to Guitar Hero as a whole, then Band Hero is a very good entry point. The overall lack of difficulty will let you get used to the mechanics and gameplay without being too overwhelmed. Then once you've gotten decent you can move on to other games with more challenging songs.

If you're already a seasoned Guitar Hero player, the only reason you'd ever want to get Band Hero is the fact that it provides 65 more songs to play. You probably won't be challenged very much by the songs, but it's still the same game you're used to, and there are good songs in the game, even though they encompass less than half of its soundtrack.